How To Save A Life
Part I: Trauma
Chapter III
Aerith's eyes were wide and verdant and clashing in violent realisation with iridescent green through glass. In reality, they were but a foot apart but the glass emphasized the isolation to an almost absurd and decidedly painful degree. She struggled to understand, to tolerate and to accept the presence of his voice in her head, speaking to her in her misery, in her restrained desperation. Had he always been able to do that? Had his voice always been so gentle, so deep and silky, so soothing? Had he spoken when he'd impaled her on the length of his glinting blade? And if he had, had his voice called terror to her mind as it should be doing this instant, where he was both her murderer and a victim of the same criminal that held her?
Her mind reeled and again, the voice that she now knew to be his spoke to her benefit.
Miss Gainsborough, you will pass out if you do not calm down. Try counting to ten in your head, it should relieve the immediate panic.
She did as she was bid, sensing no malice from the voice and deeming the advice sound. It was something like what Elmyra would have said, granted with less impassiveness and more motherly affection but still.
Can you read my thoughts? She demanded to know, terrified and mortified at the idea of him roaming her head freely, reading her secrets and learning everything she knew. He had been able to manipulate Cloud like it was nothing, what if he was doing the same to her?
Yes and no. I can hear your mind because you want me to. You reached out.
She had, hadn't she? But not for him! And still, it didn't answer her questions about his manipulative prowess.
Different time, different circumstances. You have nothing to fear from me, Miss Gainsborough. Currently, I am not your enemy.
Sincerity dropped from every word but she found herself uncaring. She needed something, someone to cling to and if it was her murderer, she didn't care. At this point, what did it all matter?
Aerith, she pushed. You put your sword through me, you should use my name.
She could see him nod, again acutely aware of her immobilisation and his motor functions.
Why do you get to move while I'm stuck? You're far more dangerous than I am! It made no sense! Even if she had had the ability to move, she could hardly have fought either of the men that had held her down and pushed needles into her arms and legs and chest. She was weak, physically, compared to her captors and especially compared to Sephiroth, who had snapped a man's neck the second the had woken up. Not that she could blame him for that, she might have done the same had she been able.
True. There are two possible answers to your question and both are equally true. Firstly, I'm not easily drugged. They engineered me to be resistant to most neurotoxins, making it hard to paralyse me, even if it would be wise to do so. Secondly, you're paralysed for your own sake as much as for theirs. If you can't move, you can't hurt yourself accidentally by thrashing around trying to fight intubation.
Aerith listened intently, his words making a sad sort of sense to her cleared mind. Then it dawned on her and again, she would have jerked her head if she could have. He was floating, upright and unmoving, head turned slightly in her direction as his throat muscles flexed and his neck twitched again and again. Her eyes softened slightly and compassion filled her heart as she grasped the harsh reality of the pain in which he had to be. Soldier or not, his face betrayed at least a little pain which in turn meant that he had to be feeling worse than she imagined.
She wanted to reach out, to let him know that she felt for him, despite their convoluted past, but instead she remained immobile as she watched his restraint crumble ever further. Twitch turned to convulsion, turned to spasm, turned hands reaching for the tube, only to realise that he was bound, hands securely fastened to the tank behind his back.
They don't care if you hurt yourself! She wanted to shout, to yell at him to deny them the satisfaction of seeing him hurting himself like a caged animal.
I'm aware, thank you very much. At least Hojo had the wherewithal to keep me comatose.
You've been here before?
She received no answer as she watched his face grow increasingly agitated, struggling against his bonds with as much grace as he could muster, seemingly refusing to lose his self-control even when naked and bound in a glass tube filled with liquid. For a moment, Aerith could almost forget the insane megalomaniac she had known him to be and see the soldier that he had been raised and engineered to be. Always in control, even when he was not.
Sleep, Aerith.
The command was gentle and laced with irritation, desperation and pain all at once and no sooner had it been spoken, echoed in her head, than did she begin to feel drowsy. Her conscious mind marvelled at the fact that he had cast a sleep spell on her from where he was, without materia, while he was fighting the tube in his throat. The amounts of energy it must have cost him were unfathomable, and so she was grateful when darkness claimed her mind, carrying her off to a place where there was neither laboratory, nor doctors or nefarious plans, no pain or needles and her limbs could move. She danced, smiling sleepily in her dream.
No sooner had she gone limp instead of stiff in body, than did his composure break. The foreign yet familiar plastic tube in his trachea burned and his throat did it's worst in trying to push it out, a task at which it failed. Sephiroth trashed as his oesophagus burned, and he summoned every last shred of his self-control to keep from spilling stomach acid into the liquid in which he floated. Cold heat shot through his veins at insane speed, leaving him gasping against the tube and his bonds all at once. He had once sworn that he would never again be at the mercy of men in lab coats rambling about greater goals or brilliant visions. And here he was, not fully aware of how he got here, submerged in water and mako, tied down like an animal and in so much pain, it was hard to endure. As though he had never left, as though he was still the young boy who did as he was bid because he couldn't take the pain he would surely be subjected to should he refuse. Memories replayed before his eyes and an alien feeling of cold, naked terror crept through his veins along with what ever drugs they had given him. A feeling that he had not felt since childhood, fear.
It was eerie and shameful all at once, he thought, how laboratories and men in white lab coats tore at his courage, reminding him in painful, agonising bursts of when he had been the weakest, at the mercy of those who praised his prowess one moment and spoke as though he was not human the next.
When he had been but a boy, a child, the fear he had felt had been trumped by a feeling of pride and purpose. The tests, the experiments, the monitoring – it had all been to help him succeed. It had been part of being special, he had thought, of being with purpose. It had been to test his endurance and his strength and to push him to grow stronger. His hatred of needles and lab-coats and of Hojo had all fuelled his efforts. That had been enough to vanquish fear in a teen-aged boy. But now, here, he had nothing more to prove or strength to gain. He had reached the peak of his capabilities a few years back, transcending human nature and absorbing the Lifestream. He had called Meteor and spilled innocent blood in the process.
Sephiroth commanded his limbs to follow the orders his mind issued without the fervour he wished to, and gradually he stilled, forcing himself to endure rather than fight. No foolish attempt to break the vial that held him would serve him well, of that he was sure.
He had felt what they had done, there on the table outside the tube in which he now struggled to breathe. He had been sedated into a comatose state of being in which he had been uncertain if he had been alive or dead at last. But nevertheless he had felt the steel of the scalpel, he had felt the prodding in his neck and he had felt them lock away his ability to wield magic without materia almost entirely. He had known it moments ago, when it had cost him too much strength to send the frightened girl to sleep so that he could fall to pieces without fear of being seen by she who had been his undoing and whose undoing he had been.
He forced himself to accept the tube in his throat and gradually, the tremors stilled, though discomfort and pain remained. Even the painful realisation that his weakness was his own doing was not dispelled by his acceptance of his momentary frailty. When he'd forced his body into hibernation while his spirit did Jenovas bidding in orchestrating the Reunion of his cells, he'd spent most of his strength. And now that his will was back in his original body, in which the calamity's cells were alight with life but her incessant screeching separated from his mind, he was reduced to what he had been before he had ever searched for godhood. This body, he realised, had never been anything more than he had been when he had been a Soldier. This was not the body he had claimed when he had chased oblivion and dealt death and destruction, but the one with which he had been sparring with Angeal and Genesis and conquered Wutai. This body was strong, inhumanly so, enhanced, fast and trained to perfection. It was his body, the one he had been born into and in which he had become himself and still, it felt strangely alien. Human even. Human tissue fused with alien cells enhanced by mako and countless surgeries, tests and hours spent in training.
And it was weak. Despite it's virtuous strength it was weak in that it lacked the ability to dissimilate into nothingness or accomplish the feats to which he had grown used to. As a consequence he was no more able, at present, to escape the situation than the sleeping girl in the chamber to his left. It was near miraculous that he had even been able to hear her mind call, much less answer.
She looked strangely lifeless, limp in sleep and paralysis, with green eyes wide open and long, brown hair floating around her, hiding at least in part her nakedness from prying eyes. A scar, plain as day to his sharp eyes, ran from under her sternum, between her breasts, to her navel, white and evidence of his sin. His gaze softened ever so slightly, when he remembered seeing her much younger self in the laboratories in which he too had lingered years ago. Her mother had been so protective and he so envious of her. Her father, in stark contrast to his own decrepit version of one, had been a great man and Sephiroth had admired him while he had loathed Hojo with a passion.
He had deserved none of what he had received in the end, and neither had she. Whatever they had planned for him could never be worse than what she would surely suffer at the hands of insane men desperate for the power she wielded. He had once believed to be like her, an Ancient, and the prospect of such power had been too much for his mind to handle. To think of what could happen if men like that strange, decrepit degenerate who resembled Hojo far too much for his liking, got their hands on her power, was unfathomable.
For how long he remained thus, lost in thought while pain still coursed through his veins and his muscles ached, he knew not. Time was essenceless, fleeting and endless all at once. He might even have drifted off to unconsciousness, he couldn't tell, as the pain became more and more intense and agony took hold of his mind, forcing coherent thought to cower along with his muted arrogance.
The lights had died during the night, the only light illuminating the expanse of the laboratory what was emanated by the instruments surrounding the two glass chambers in which two very different bodies floated motionlessly, seemingly asleep. The monitors displaying their respective vitals were beeping steadily, counting down the time left of their involuntary suspension in isolation. Hour after hour ticked steadily away, both bodies immobile as sleep and self-imposed unconsciousness dominated scared minds and tired muscles. She slept gently, gratefully embracing every second of the spell, while he had given up on fighting the pain in favour of near comatose unawareness around fifteen hours into cold fire running through his veins and threatening to send him screaming internally for the power which he knew to corrupt and which resided in his cells only to lose out to madness yet again. Instead of yielding his self once more, he had opted for oblivion, eyes closed and almost peacefully posed, his lone black wing wrapped protectively around his exposed body. He had been unable to keep the appendage from protruding as it did when he was threatened and thus the feathers shielded him somewhat from the gazes of the scientist and his aides as they returned to the laboratory in the morning.
Neither awoke when the lights were switched on and the displays on their prisons read, charted and changed in settings. Not even when the hunched silhouette of the poised Professor drew up before them, clicking his tongue in what might have been disapproval did any of them stir.
„T minus twelve hours and sixteen minutes. Both subjects seem stable though unconscious in isolation. Proceeding as planned, preparing transfer to holding unit for further study," his slightly nasal voice resounded, being recorded in his notes along with both of his specimen's vitals.
Professor Akira had expected them to be less complacent, wondering if the medication he had induced had been too potent but dismissing the thought the next moment. He had been meticulous in his calculations, nothing less. The waiting period was tedious, he decided, excited for when they had both been transferred into the holding unit and they had started their adaptation period. That was when he could really get to work.
He snickered, shuffling away to complete his paperwork and sign the death certificate for the no longer quite as useful Dr. Grayle.